Getting back into my art + new art Instagram account!

I drew this kangaroo today.  I'm not thrilled with how it turned out because I'm a beginner at drawing fur, but it's a huge step in the right direction.  Practice makes perfect!  I feel like I need to just wipe over the whole thing with a cloth because the contrast is too much.  It looks too busy or something.  Oh well, I'm still learning.

I'm planning on doing a modified Inktober challenge where I follow the prompts, but at my own pace and not in October.  I've always wanted to join in the real challenge, but I don't have time to draw every day in October and I've never done anything in ink so learning at the same time would be too stressful.  I've always wanted to learn inking though, so I'm doing this as a way to learn at my own speed to hopefully keep from getting overwhelmed.  Mediums that can't be erased or reworked (ink, watercolor, etc.) have always stressed me out because I'm a perfectionist.  I want to work on that.

To keep from cluttering up Chrome's Instagram with art photos I made a new account.  You can follow me at @farmerlifeart.  I've been posting all of my older stuff and the account is already way more popular than I thought it would be, which is exciting and encouraging.  I'm hoping it will motivate me to stick to the Inktober thing.  Maybe in 2020 I'll be ready to do the actual challenge.

For the Inktober challenge I am working in a gray toned sketchbook (it looks tan in the pictures because of indoor lighting ick).  I've never used a toned sketchbook, but I'm really excited to learn to use it.  The first prompt of 2016 was fast, so I drew a cheetah.  It was the first thing that came to mind.

I'm keeping them fairly small so I don't feel so overwhelmed.  It's about the size of an index card (where the kangaroo above is an 8" by 10" page), so I can fit four to a page.  I still need to learn more about crosshatching.  I hated the cheetah at first, but after walking away and coming back to it I love it now.  I think it's just because I'm not used to ink which feels so minimalist.  If you want to follow along with me on the rest of the prompts please considering following my new IG page @farmerlifeart.  I'll be posting all of them there.  I may post them here once I've finished the 2016 prompts.  It could be a while though.

After drawing the cheetah I wanted to practice with a brush pen because I've never used them (except on a Winnie the Pooh drawing you can see on IG).  Brush pens are SO difficult!! My hand is not at all steady I've realized.  After practicing drawing lines and some calligraphy I decided to do a Zentangle with nothing but the brush pen.  I love Zentangle and normally find it very relaxing.  It helps a lot with my anxiety.  The drawing below with a brush pen though.... was SO tedious!!!!!!

My first mistake was drawing this on a full size page in my sketchbook!  I normally keep Zentangle small because there is so much detail and it can be very time consuming.  This turtle took me HOURS!  Even though the perfectionist in me hates the inconsistency in the lines I love how this turned out.  With a little more practice I can see it being fun again.  All of those teeny tiny circles were an absolute nightmare with a brush pen!  I was missing my micron fineliners lol.  I'm definitely going to have to do more Zentangle though.  For right now though I'm going to take a break from the tedious fur on that kangaroo, then I will get started on the second prompt.... NOISY!  Anybody have a guess on what I chose to draw for that prompt??

Wordless (not!) Wednesday - Grand Canyon Ground Squirrel

This is my favorite photo from our entire epic road trip.  A ground squirrel was kind enough to pose for me in front of the Grand Canyon!

2019 Epic Road Trip - Part I - 40 Before 40 Item 10

My husband and I went on an epic road trip a month ago and one of our stops was the Painted Desert!  I have wanted to visit this place since the first time I saw photos of it.  I've been dreaming of taking photos of it for years.  I can finally mark it off my bucket list (and my 40 Before 40 list - it wasn't on the original list, but when I realized I can't donate blood because I'm on thyroid medicine I replaced it with this).  It was smaller than I expected, but still absolutely incredible!! 

The photo above is my favorite out of the group.  It shows the different colors so well.  The others are decent, but uploading them messes with the quality of the photos.  They look better on my computer.  Oh well, hopefully they are still good enough to be enjoyable for you guys.

 

 We weren't able to go at sunset when the colors would have been at their most brilliant, but there was still some great colors.

The one above was looking in the other direction.  It's not a Painted Desert picture, but I had to snap it and share it because of the huge dust devil.  So cool!

 This is another one of my favorites.  The purple color is so neat!

Luckily we were able to drive around to the other side where there were more shadows for more dramatic visuals.

 Hubby taking pictures of the Painted Desert.

 My Rogue made the trip so enjoyable!  I couldn't resist snapping a picture of it in the desert.  It is blue... it just looks black because of the lighting.

 We saw so many ravens out west!  They are the coolest birds!

 This was the path leading down into the desert.... we decided not to hike down there.

 There were some tracks, but they were so far away I couldn't tell what made them.

 I'll post more pictures as soon as I can!  Make sure to check out my other blog (LINK) to see pictures of my mule ride at the Grand Canyon!  Another dream come true!

Introducing.....

 I love his half blue eye and his one ear up, one ear down. So cute!

Introducing Hank the Goatdog!!!  I've posted about Hank on Instagram, but I haven't officially introduced him here yet.  I wasn't looking for another dog, but you may remember my parents rescued a four week old puppy Buddy this year and they were having trouble containing his energy.  He couldn't play with Jackal because he's too rambunctious and Jackal is old and easy to hurt and/or knock down.  My best friend had a dog she rescued that she wasn't able to keep and she asked me if I wanted him.  At first I said no because I just wasn't looking for a second dog, but eventually I changed my mind.  I'm glad I did!!

Hank is about a year old.  We're guessing he's part German Shepherd (I'm positive about that) and Australian Shepherd (maybe?) or Catahoula (maybe?).  Something that comes in blue merle.  He's been hit by a car before because his back leg healed crooked, he's missing teeth and a toenail, but he's FAST!  It doesn't slow him down at all.  He is the perfect playmate for Buddy, but also gentle enough to share a home with Jackal. 

I've been wanting to get some nice pictures of him, but it's difficult because he's camera shy.  I finally got out my new (old) camera and managed to snap a few that I love.  He does not like the flash, but he tolerated it.  I have no idea why the flash kept going off since it was broad daylight outside.... ahh what a learning curve a DSLR is! 

Hank is a shy, nervous dog, but with time and consistency he has really come out of his shell.  Everyone here has fallen in love with him.  Enjoy the pictures!!

No pictures please!  He has slouchy, submissive posture most of the time.

I think he was abused at one time.

"Please stop taking my picture!"

Playing hide and seek with hubby.  So cute!!

Notice the big dog in the right? That's Buddy!!

Can you believe this tiny little four week old puppy has turned into this big dog??

Isn't he adorable!!

He is definitely half Pit Bull and half something else, maybe Australian Shepherd?  It's weird we ended up with two stray mutts from two different counties that appear to have Australian Shepherd in them.  It is a popular breed in our area, so maybe not that odd.  Enjoy the rest of the pictures of Hank and Buddy!

"OMG what is that??"

 Buddy doesn't know how to pose like Jackal does, but he accidentally poses really cute.

 His straight up ear and tail kill me.  So funny.

 He reminds me SO much of Jackal many years ago.

Aww I haven't looked at old pictures of Jackal in SO long!  They are the same tan with the same white toes and chest.  The biggest differences are the ears and patterns.

 Sorry, back to pictures of Hank.

 "Watch your tail Jackal..."

 Whack! "You so did that on purpose!"

 Jackal is still my most handsome boy!!  Love him!

 "I don't want to look at the camera..."

Sorry for the demon red eyes.  Don't know why the flash was going off in broad daylight...

Hank is such a unique and handsome dog!  I'm glad we gave him a chance and made him a part of the family.  I hope you all will love him too.

P.S.  I totally forgot to mention Hank is named after one of my favorite book series from when I was a kid, Hank the Cowdoy!

I LOVE this series, even now.  It is so funny!  If you know anyone with kids who love to read this is a definite MUST read.

It's almost autumn and you know what that means.... PUMPKINS!!

 Pumpkins!

There is a guy who works at the local grocery store that saves the damaged pumpkins for us.  He called yesterday so we went down to the store and brought these home.  You might be wondering what we do with them... we feed them to the goats!! They LOVE them!  I'm not going to ramble on, other than to say I'm still figuring out my camera so some of the pictures are blurry.  I don't have a lot of spare time to play around with it (also the reason I so rarely blog and probably don't have many readers left), but some of them turned out cute.  So enjoy!

 Kamikaze chomping down on his pumpkins.

 Daniel is obsessed with pumpkin!! He tries to chase everyone else away.

 Wildfire with a big mouthful!

 Daniel looking handsome!  The flash finally didn't go off so his blue eyes look pretty.

 My handsome Batman with his gorgeous blue eyes.  This is Georgia's son born in December.

 This one is my favorite of the day.  

Kamikaze has such gorgeous horns and I love his half white/half black beard.  So cute!

 Here's Wildfire with his mini-me younger brother Monarch.

 Monarch looks so much like his big brother, but he has blue eyes.

We will probably be selling him.

 Another cute one of KK looking over his shoulder at me.  

Shh, don't tell anyone he's one of my top favorites!

 Gulliver is looking SO grown up and handsome!  Can you believe this is my bottle baby??

LOVE him!  He's only a year old and already just under 150lbs!

 Here is hubby with Jasper (Gulliver's father)!  Jasper's head is bigger than hubby's!

Jasper is over two hundred pounds, so he weighs more than me and my hubby!

I love the photobomb by Buddy, my parent's pup.

 Nomming on some delicious pumpkin.

 Don't ask what is all over his face... you don't want to know.

 He was shaking his head.  It was too hilarious not to post.

 Then he was doing the flehman.

 Georgia is looking good!  I still can't believe she turns ten in a month and a half.

 Zephyr and Sandia inspecting the pumpkin.

 Sapphire was smart and used her leg to help break off chunks of pumpkin.

This turned out super blurry, but I had to share a picture of Lyric so you could see how much cashmere she has grown in already (and it's still in the 90sF).  She's normally jet black, but that dusting of white over the top is her cashmere.  She was being so cute eating the seeds off the ground instead of eating the flesh out of the pumpkins.

 Bubbles and Strawberry weren't sure about the wagon the pumpkins were in.

 Almost everyone piled right in to eat the pumpkin.

 This beautiful girl is Tanzanite Too, or Tanz for short.

I haven't posted much of the kids that were born this year because I've been so busy.  I hate that I don't have pictures showing them growing up like I usually do.  Her mother is Tanzanite, who we actually sold in the spring because a girl fell in love with her and wanted to compete with her at the local shows.  When we sold Tanzanite, Tanz was sort of adopted by Topaz (her grandmother), which was totally adorable.  She is half Myotonic.  Her sire is Daniel from earlier in the post.

This beautiful girl is Topaz's daughter from December.  She's the only one we have left from the triplets.  We sold her brother and her sister had her neck broken in a freak accident when she was only a week or so old.  I absolutely love this girl.  She is so much like Topaz.  I'm still trying to decide on a name.

I love this picture.  It looks like LeeAnn and her daughter are kissing, but they actually aren't even very close to each other.  Gotta love perspective.  LeeAnn's daughter (name also pending) is such a sweetheart and is built really nice.  We sold her twin sister.

The last shot is Bubbles, just because I love her face.

We have daughters of Andesine, Blossom and Strawberry, but they are in the weaning pen so I didn't get pictures of them.  I will try to get pictures as soon as they go back in the big herd.  They are SO cute and all three does were great first time mothers.  I will share more information when I introduce them.  We have Bubble's son, but we will be selling him.  She was a great mom too, although she did get a blockage in her udder.  Luckily she only had a single so feeding him was no problem.

That's all I have for now.  I really need to do better about posting because I keep the blog partly as a record for myself and I feel like I missed out on so much with the kids this year.  Next year's kidding season is going to be super exciting because we are trying something new, but I'll fill you in on the details with that later.

I need to update more often... I even have a new member of the family to introduce, but I just haven't had time.  I will get it scheduled to post tomorrow.  If you follow me on Instagram you will already know who it is.  If not, well you'll have to check back tomorrow!!